Stars, Hide Your Fires : Punk Percy AU Percabeth
by nightswitch
Summary: "Define bad. I mean, i've gotten 'no good' before, but 'bad? I just don't get it. 'Cause rotten eggs and Hitler are bad, Annie; leather jackets never killed nobody." She scoffed and punched his arm, good naturedly. "Bad is 'no good', Percy." "And good is no fun, my stars.
1. Chapter 1

Punk!Percy AU

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><p><span><strong>Stars, Hide Your Fires<strong>

_...let light not see my black and deep desires._

_-William Shakespeare, Macbeth_

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><p><span>CHAPTER 1: We're So Unlikely<span>

Lies:

She'd told him her name was Annie McSmith and he told her he didn't give a crap about anyone or anything.

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><p>Annabeth didn't care if Percy Jackson had "dangerously green eyes", trouble with the law, or even the world record for tightest black skinny jeans ever worn by man.<p>

She just wanted to study.

"Stop following me." She deadpanned.

"I'm not following you," He said calmly. "I just need a tutor. So yes, technically speaking, I am following you-"

"Well what are you gonna do?!" Annabeth whirled around, less frightened and more ticked-off, and the taller boy raised his hands in surrender and took a few clumsy steps backwards. "You gonna force me to?" She challenged. "A-Are you gonna punch me in the face or something?!"

"Whoa there! Easy now. And of course not, i'm a feminist. I was gonna ask nicely." He eyed her with a sour expression, shoving the toothpick he held like a cigarette between his lips. "Geez…"

Annabeth adjusted her books in her arms, combing back a strand of her hair and mumbling "oh", her face beyond flustered.

She had 3 textbooks, a binder, and a jansport backpack, and he didn't carry anything on him but an empty pack of gum and maybe a stale cigarette.

They just stood there for a while, until he opened his arms, as if expecting something.

"So?" He wondered aloud. "Is it a done deal orr?"

"Oh, no, no you don't!" Annabeth pushed past him, storming off to the front of the bleachers while he strolled along behind her like a smug little puppy dog.

"No, sir, it is most definitely not a _done deal_! You're not even giving me anything in return!" She turned to face him, eyebrows raised.

He scrunched up his nose at her. "Err… okay, true! But what do you want?" He leaned into her hair and his breath was hot and smelt like dark chocolate and seasalt. "A kiss?"

Annabeth, jerked away from the boy, her face beet red.

"No, you idiot! You've got to be kidding me if you think i'm one of _those_ girls-"

"Drew Tanaka told me that you told Piper McLean you think i'm 'physically appealing'." He said, evidently pleased with himself. "I'm not exactly sure what that means, but it should count for something-" Annabeth put a hand on his chest when he started to get too close for comfort again.

"Do you want me to tutor you or not?" She sighed.

Annabeth couldn't help the reluctant, irritated smile creeping on her face as he grinned down at her; he hadn't looked away from her eyes this entire time.

And his side-ways half smiles were contagious.

"I'll take that as a yes." She mumbled, setting down her books on the bleacher bench beside her and taking out a felt-tip pen.

She grabbed his arm roughly before he could protest, popped the cap off the marker with her teeth, and began to jot down her cell phone number smack dab in the middle of his wrist.

_'This girl's got some nerve…'_ Percy chuckled to himself.

He thought he saw a clean-cut smarty-pants, but this girl was something else.

And by the way she comfortably nudged his shoulder and didn't pull away when their knuckles brushed, he could tell she was warming up to him too.

"You got a name?" He tried.

"No."

"Don't be like that, Wise Girl."

"Fine. It's Annie. Annie McSmith." Said Annabeth, who was so not 'Annie McSmith'.

She didn't know why she lied. It kinda gave her a false sense of protection though, like if he ever decided to turn on her and throw her into a van or anything.

"Annie…" He whispered, testing out the word.

They walked for a little while in silence.

"Why are you talking to me?" Annabeth finally asked what had been eating at the butterflies in her stomach.

Percy looked puzzled, his eyes still locked on hers, but hers were still far far away.

"What is that supposed to mean-" He began.

"You know! You're…." She wanted to say 'different', 'fascinating', maybe even 'cool' if she knew it wouldn't further feed his ego. But instead she just said the obvious. "You're _Percy Jackson_. You're bad. But in the right kind of ways."

"Hmm.." He scratched his chin with faux-insight, and only then did she notice that his knuckles were all split, kissed with an alarming shade of red ceremoniously down the exact middle of each. "Define _bad_. I mean, i've gotten _'no good'_ before, but _'bad'_? I just don't get it. 'Cause rotten eggs and Hitler are bad, Annie; leather jackets never killed nobody."

She scoffed and punched his arm, good naturedly.

"Bad _is_ 'no good', Percy."

"And good is no fun, my stars."

Annabeth's words caught in her throat. She was struck and for once in her life a little dumbfounded.

She only squinted up at him, hands still braced on her backpack straps, not sure whether to marvel or groan and walk away.

"I'm not sure if you're complicated, or if you just want to be." She muttered at last, but not unkindly, more in wonderment.

Annabeth almost expected him to be offended, for his quick temper to get the best of him.

But instead the most thrilled, impish, and undoubtedly insane grin spread across his face.

She could almost see his ears perk up.

"You know what, Annie, maybe a little bit of both." He was smiling widely now and shuffling his feet with his hands shoved deep in his back pockets and Annabeth could only furrow her brow and chuckle nervously.

It was a little more than odd to see the guy with a lip piercing and multiple tattoos blushing and looking smitten.

"You really get me. Maybe you're not so betty crocker after all, Wise Girl…" He looked at her differently now.

Not like he was ready to take her for a joyride on the back of his motorcycle quite yet, but not like she was the stereotypical, emotionally fragile "shy book worm" either.

And it made her squirm. She hated how she wanted to run her hands through that stupid punk hair of his and trace the lines of his scars with her ring finger, some of which were probably indirectly self-inflicted.

"Um I-I should get my lunch from my locker now." She could feel her face glowing hotly and she had to stop her hands from combing back her hair for the hundredth time.

He was relishing the effect he had on her and she didn't want to give him the satisfaction.

"Yeah, of course!" He called back, and Annabeth couldn't help but notice how deliciously deep his voice was, like honey and gravel. "You go… read a book or something!"

They were both back-pedaling away from each other slowly now, avoiding the inevitability of the conversation ending.

She rolled her eyes at him.

"Sure bad-boy, and you go kick a trashcan, or harass the elderly…. _or something_."

He smirked profoundly at her; maybe it was the snide in her voice or maybe the school-girl skirt and knee-socks that made him stop in his tracks.

This was the best conversation he'd had in weeks. He'd just started to lose faith in humanity too.

"Okay, okay, i get it!" He knew she probably had places to be, and he was being selfish, but he couldn't bring himself to say goodbye. So instead he just bit his lip ring hard and tried his best, "See you 'round, Annie."

She was rounding the corner of the bleachers now, hips swaying and pale gold ringlets of hair tossing about her shoulders like sunlight.

"By the way," She started, almost out of sight and with a coy smile, "My name isn't 'Annie McSmith', Seaweed Brain."

And then she was gone, but still stuck there in his head at the same time.

_'I don't even know her name?! This girl couldn't get more mysterious if she were Sherlock freaking Holmes!'_ He groaned internally.

_'And "Seaweed Brain"?'_ He thought with a grimace, spitting out his chewed-up toothpick and hopping over one of the low fences surrounding the track with ease.

It must have had to do something with the faded ocean-green highlights he had in his fauxhawk.

He had it dyed blue a while back, but between getting into fights and being the infamous "piece-of-shit" he was, Percy hadn't gotten around to touching it up.

He'd have to get on that asap.

He stole a glance at the felt-tipped phone number written onto his wrist like smudged calligraphy.

_'Yeah that, and other things…' _

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><p><strong>AN: This isn't my best, but what the heck?! I'm having a lot of PJO feels now that i finished blood of olympus and i need to vent.**

**'Vent' meaning write a lot of fanfiction and cry while looking at Viria's fanart.**

**Sorry if this was a teensie bit confusing, this is kinda the establishing chapter, the main plot will unfold later.**

**I also have got two other Maze Runner Imagines to write so ha ha i hate me.**

**Wish me luck. I love you guys.**

**-nightswitch**


	2. Chapter 2

**Stars, Hide Your Fires**

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><p><span>CHAPTER 2: She Majors In Logistics, He Majors In Self-Destruction<span>

Lies:

She'd told her father she'd "stay away from that boy", and he told himself he'd never use the phone number that was scrawled onto his wrist.

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><p><em>"it's not like i''m falling in love<em>

_i just want you_

_to do me no good_

_and you look like you could_

_so c'mon." _

— arctic monkeys, no.1 party anthem

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><p>The cement was too hot on his elbows with the combined powers of 100% leather, the color black, and this son of a bitch called the sun.<p>

But Percy still leaned against the concrete wall nonetheless.

The pose made him look badass, and, although he'd never ever admit to it, he was waiting for someone.

Everyday after school, he'd noticed, Annabeth Chase would come stomping up the bleacher stairs in the most inelegant manner, looking frazzled and out for blood, and then she'd try to read her English honors book before screaming at her lap and throwing it over the edge.

He knew she would only go back and retrieve it in a couple of minutes, but (as demented as it sounded) it kinda comforted him to know that "perfect girl" wasn't so perfect.

She was just as sane as him, which was not very sane.

Dyslexia, he guessed.

He had it too, he just would've never had the will to clamber all the way down the big-bad-metal-bleachers and pick up the book again.

That was why he admired her, that was why he found her so fascinating.

Well, that and the fact that he wished she would clamber over _him_.

_'No, Percy. Don't be a creep.'_ He squinted his eyelids shut and tried to imagine Annabeth with a beard, something to veer himself away from her.

Unfortunately he couldn't muster up the image.

He just kept picturing that one guy from Duck Dynasty who wasn't even vaguely Annabeth.

_'She's pretty.'_ He nodded to himself, eyes still closed._ 'But she'd never go for someone like me.' _

He nodded at that too.

"Hey freak. What exactly are you doing again?"

Percy snapped his eyes open, jumping back and scraping his elbows, startled.

It was only Nico DiAngelo galvanizing the living daylights out of him. Nico, who was simultaneously the scum of the earth and Percy Jackson's best friend.

It kinda made sense.

Nico looked up at the older boy with a skeptical expression and bags like bruises underneath big, dark eyes.

Percy struggled to recompose himself.

"Uh.. I was just-"

"'Cause it looks like you were trying to pull a That So Raven. Did you have a vision?" Nico mocked, raising an eyebrow and shuffling through his Mythomagic cards.

_'Nerd.'_ Percy thought with a smile. (And yes, "nerd" is in fact a term of endearment).

"I was just… looking for you!" He exclaimed maybe too enthusiastically, because Nico didn't look convinced.

"Yeah, sure. You were looking for me if I had curly blonde hair, pretty pink lips, and boobs-"

"Okay! Okay! Thank you for that, asshat. Go sulk back into the shadows or whatever else you do in your free time! Y-You don't know what you're talking about." Percy tried to usher him away, still looking around like a kid lost in the supermarket.

"Actually, i do know what i'm talking about and i think it's hilarious." Nico countered, running his hand through his undercut. It was a habit he'd caught on from Percy. "Really, though? Annabeth Chase? You could've had anyone in this school! You could've had Thalia Grace, she's like the definition of punk-"

"Oh yeah? Well maybe i'm looking for something different."

"So you admit that you're looking?"

"Ye- well, no! Just… leave me alone." Percy sounded like an idiot.

Nico grinned silently and backed away with his hands raised up to his black-stud earrings in surrender.

"Don't have to tell me twice! See you in tartarus tomorrow, Jackson!" Nico called light-heartedly from across the field.

The "tartarus" he was referring to was Ms. Dodd's math class, which was, in a way, it's own hell.

..

Then, there was Annabeth.

It was impossible not to notice her against the biting silver of high school bleachers in 3 pm sun.

The color actually made her cool gray eyes stand out even more.

He didn't know if he liked her liked her yet, all he knew was that he hadn't met anyone like her before and that he really really wanted to touch her hair.

"Percy!" She yelled, waving her hand from the other side of the stadium and bouncing on her heels to see him.

He'd been waiting for twenty minutes, he wanted to run over there and hear her talk about her day for hours, or even just look at her closer.

But he just gave her a small nod, a tilt of the chin, and strutted over to her slowly, like a long-bodied, lanky cat.

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><p>Annabeth's stomach fluttered once and then wound itself into pretty little ribbons at the sight of him.<p>

She had to admit it, she did find him attractive in a weird, radioactive sort of way.

"Hey Annabeth!" Came a voice from behind her.

"Hey Perc-" She stopped herself short, turning around to find tanned skin and blond hair like hers, only much shorter and a sandier, dirtier color.

Why had she said "Percy"? He had been walking right in front of her.

And besides, Luke's voice was slightly higher than Percy's, and without the drawl.

"H-Hey Luke." She stuttered. "I was just going to do my homework, that's all."

Annabeth was strangely defensive, she felt like she was just caught doing something scandalous.

Maybe it was because she was staring at Percy the way she usually looked at him.

Luke was older, but she still pictured Percy taller in her mind.

_'Aaaand why the hell are you even comparing them?'_ She snapped at herself.

Luke smiled and it was uncannily perfect.

There was no slight smirk, no chip in the canine, nothing at all.

"Of course you were doing homework! Like you'd actually come to the football stadium for a sports event?!" He exclaimed cheerily.

Annabeth smiled, a little put-off, but his voice held only kindness.

He was only ever kind to her.

But like how an older brother was to a younger sister.

It was all very frustrating, you know, considering that he'd only been her crush since she was seven years old.

"But seriously, you should have some more school spirit. 'Go Goode Highschool', right?" He pressed again, and she kind of wanted to vomit.

If there was one thing her and Percy Jackson shared in common, it was a mutual hate for Goode High School.

"Kind of ironic that the name of the shittest school in the district is called 'Goode Highschool', am i right?" The snide voice said from over her shoulder. She could feel his breath in her hair and it made her smile.

She didn't know if she liked Percy Jackson, but he sure did know how to make her smile.

"I know, right!?" She turned her back to Luke to face him.

He was wearing a t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off in a rugged "i bought this at a thrift store" way, and several thick-banded bracelets decorated his right wrist, the left wrist being decorated with only her phone number that he'd retraced.

_'He retraced it!'_ She thought with an odd giddiness.

"The only thing this school is 'goode' at is ruining learning for the youth of Manhattan and not teaching us a thing yet _still_ forcing us to show up." Annabeth rambled on.

Percy squinted his eyes at her and tried to repress the laugh that kept seizing him in choppy fits.

"I- um, okay. That was a god-awful pun, but where is the lie?"

Now she was laughing too and he was gazing at her like she was something else.

"Um, sorry." Luke stepped between the two of them, as if shielding her, his bulky letterman jacket finishing the job. "Annabeth, do you know this guy?"

_'Oh he shouldn't have said that.'_

Percy glowered, his sea green eyes burning through Luke like a cigarette butt pressed to paper.

"Yeah, actually she does. Crazy right?" His jaw was flexed shut, but his eyes had a flickering, manic glint in them that was unnerving. "Who would've thought that Annabeth Chase could be friends with a dude who doesn't act like he slipped off a pogo stick as a child, and now, for all these years, it's been stuck up his-"

"PERCY." Annabeth shoved him in the arm, and she knew that if it had been anyone else that did that, they'd be on the floor and wishing they hadn't.

But he only gently shrugged her off, stepping up to Luke again, who didn't back away.

"I've seen boys like you before." Luke said with an eerie calm. Percy's hell-bent stare wavered nervously. "Trying so hard to act like they don't care at all, but they do. They do probably more than we do. Boys who try so hard to act like them being a failure is intentional-"

"Luke, stop." Annabeth warned.

"-but it's not. It's not that they don't want to succeed. They just," Luke made an airy gesture with his hand that trailed off into nothing. "Can't."

Annabeth expected Percy to be fuming, but he had shrunken down into an icy, nearly vacant, shell that was far too hard to breach.

"You don't know anything about me, and your attempt to be condescending just goes to show for how ignorant you really are." He said stonily.

Annabeth didn't know whether to be shocked by his words, or proud of his use of vocabulary.

Luke looked battered for a second, struck into silence, but then he scoffed and started to back away.

"C'mon, Annabeth. We're leaving-"

"I think she can decide for herself." Percy said, looking to her, which neither of them had done in a while.

_'Please don't go with him, please don't go with him.'_ Percy bit his tongue.

Annabeth felt like he'd just put a knife to her throat.

"Uh, I- I can't." She stammered, finding her feet moving to Luke's side.

He was all she'd ever wanted.

"I'm sorry Percy."

She wouldn't forget the look on his face, if it even was a look at all.

It was an expression shattered into bits.

But Luke smelt like sunblock, and had shallow, pale-blue eyes like a glacial pool, and a hollow smile like an empty cage.

He was perfect, and that made Annabeth sad.

And Percy?

He was angry. Well he was angry all the time, but this was different.

He didn't need to smoke, or ride his motorcycle far away, he needed to destroy.

Whether it was others or himself, he didn't know.

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><p>"Officer, I-I can assure you," Percy felt a dark laughter at the back of his throat, full of spite and lined with barbed wire. And although his lopsided grin was half-assed, it glinted like a knife, catching the shine of the headlights like flipping a nickel in the dark. "All my trouble is hand-picked."<p>

The oppressive light from the silent sirens still whirring was enough to give him a permanent migraine, he was beat-down to a pulp from fighting, and it was already eleven pm.

Percy tried to stand up, but, much to his annoyance, the officer forced him back down into a squatting position by the head.

"No, no, son." The officer meant well, but the 'son' part made Percy squint even harder up at him with an irritated expression.

"I'm trying to help you out!" The officer elaborated, his rounded belly bouncing slightly as he took a seat on the curb beside the boy with a huff. "If these guys are pickin on you, you gotta tell someone, kiddo. Now I don't say it gotta be me, but, uh-" he licked his lips and scratched his scruffy, sandpaper chin with cheetoh puff fingers. "You've got people there for ya kid, to make sure you're okay."

Percy had the sick urge to laugh again. To laugh or cry, or both all at once.

"Don't you see?" When Percy got up this time, the officer didn't stop him, he was probably trying to give the "kid" some "space".

"I did this to myself."

The officer's empty look of practiced kindness dropped along with his mouth. Now he stared at the boy with horror and realization.

This kid was something else, somewhere between a genius and a lunatic.

"I went out there," Percy continued smugly watching the officer's reaction, "I picked the dumbest lookin tool in the shed and let him pick me apart like a toy soldier."

Percy smiled wildly at the officer, evoking any reaction gave him a satisfactory thrill. Someone saw him, someone actually saw him.

Percy was panting lightly now, the anticipation killing him. This was his favorite part of the game, the "oh my god", the "you need some serious help", or his most cherished "you disgust me".

But instead all the officer said was "Why?"

The question hung in the the gasps of air between them like a hammer, and Percy knew that to answer it, he'd have to break himself open.

No one had ever asked him that before.

He forgot that adults could give a shit.

"I guess," his voice felt so much smaller now, and his gaze didn't loom over the cop with superiority. The cop recognized that what Percy was doing was pathetic, Percy didn't have to play pretend anymore.

"I guess, I let them physically hurt me so I could just focus on that pain instead of the other kind of it."

The officer no longer looked dumbfounded, he just looked detached.

Percy continued anyways. "I-I know it sounds stupid, it is... I suppose I'm a coward. I just couldn't do it myself. I couldn't bring the knife to my own skin so I let some asshole do it for me."

Suddenly the cuts gashed across his chest and jaw didn't bleed adrenaline.

They stung bitterly and ached like a bitch.

His lip was split a little at the corner and the skin across his knuckles were demolished.

He was no hero, he was pathetic and "just a kid" and angry all the time.

But this time there was a reason, something, someone, had set him off.

She was worth it.

The officer seemed to have caught the tremor in his lip, because he smiled and started nodding.

"_Oh_, oh okay. I get it now, alright son." The officer chuckled softly, hands resting on his hips.

Percy grimaced, kind of tempted to yell at him that he didn't know crap, but he was too curious.

"This is about a girl, right? Ya girlfriend break up with you or something?"

"She's not my girlfriend!" Percy said defensively. Why he had this overwhelming urge to protect her, he had no idea.

"What?!" This officer had gone from understanding and sympathetic, to condescending and extremely annoying. "Is she like your baby mama then? Your little wifey?"

"Hey, hey," Percy stepped forward, and the full grown cop with the gun in his holster actually backed away, scared.

Percy wasn't the brawniest (like that big, stocky wrestler Frank Zhang), but he had some lean muscle, was over 6 feet tall even at seventeen, and the look in his eye was locked, loaded, and more terrifying than any gun.

"You don't know shit about Annabeth Chase." He spat, shaking a finger at the cop and gritting his teeth.

Sure, he barely knew anything about the girl himself, but he knew that she was something.

Something he'd never seen in any girl in all seventeen years of his life.

The cop obviously took offense as he fumbled with the cuffs at his belt.

"I've heard about you at the station before, a piece of work you are. Jackson, right? Perseus." He started forward, but Percy let the officer size him up.

Percy almost wished the officer would come at him, he still had a ton of adrenaline and even more pent up anger, most of it directed at authority and blond-haired football stars, but anyone would do.

"Well," The officer circled him, but Percy didn't move a muscle, although his fist did twitch when the cop brushed by his arm. "Looks like your fun little temper-tantrum reign of terror is over. This was the last screw-up for you little boy." Percy's brain felt like the ocean in a thunderstorm, his thoughts were waves that kept on against each other, crashing over and over again and rocking back and forth in every direction. "You're coming with me, Jackson. You're under arrest. You have the right-"

The cop never finished, Percy cut off the sentence with his fist.

Not his greatest shining moment, the punch was lazy and his arm was limp, but his knuckles sure did leave an impression on the officer's face.

Now he was really in for it.

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><p>Luke ended up walking Annabeth to the 7-11 and then leaving her there.<p>

At least he squeezed her hand before he took off with his football friends, as if saying "take this. this will instill a flicker of hope within you so you won't completely hate me and you'll still actually think we have a chance!".

Annabeth didn't make herself consciously recognize that, because she was afraid it was true.

Instead she just bought a coca-cola slurpee, went home, and tried to do her homework.

Emphasis on "tried". Meaning "to no avail".

The moment the graphite of her pencil touched her paper, it was trailing off the page in lazy doodles.

There was something bugging her.

Something that had black silk hair and a difficult personality.

_'Don't think about him.'_ She thought, as if she had no right.

They were too different.

For gods sake, Luke thought he was some stranger trying to mug her!

_'Well, he needs a tutor, and you need the money.'_ Annabeth chewed on the end of her pencil, twirling around absent mindedly in her swivelly chair. _'And it's not like you don't have the time…'_ She noted, bitterly.

And it was true, Annabeth's life had been uneventful thus far.

She never went to any school dances, and she acted like she knew what she wanted to be in life, but really she didn't.

Annabeth Chase had nothing to look forward to.

Although she did find herself rushing to the bleachers after school, her head darting around for a familiar face with her calculus homework still untouched in her lap.

The phone rang and she almost jumped out of her skin.

She picked it up without bothering to check the collar ID.

"Hello, Annabeth Chase speaking."

"Dang, Chase," The voice was grainy and fuzzy with static, but obviously Percy's, "Why so formal?"

Annabeth rolled her eyes, even though he couldn't see.

"I thought you were one of the professors from Harvard, seaweed brain!" She groaned exasperatedly, plopping onto her bed.

His chuckle was a nice sort of sound on the other line of the phone, and it made her close her eyelids.

God she hated that he almost could be perfect.

"Professor? I've gotta give it to you, you're pretty damn close. It's me, Goode High's favorite delinquent! Ring a bell?"

Well, she did say _almost_.

"And where exactly is 'me' right now?" She inquired. "It sounds like you're in a public restroom."

"It smells like a public restroom." He admitted.

"Percy." She pushed.

"Fine. I'm in a jail cell and i'm cold and i look like i just made out with a brick wall and this guy is staring at me like he wants to eat me. _Eat me_, Annabeth." His voice was grave, but it held that sick humor it always did.

"Percy!" She jumped up from her bed, holding the phone tighter to her ear.

Why was she so worried?

This was probably a normal thing for him.

"Percy, are you okay?"

He started to laugh dryly, but then gave up with a sharp sigh. He sounded exhausted, too worn down to care about his rep.

"They're detaining me at the Manhattan Holding Facility. And I-I can't call my mom again. She already has to deal with work, and my asshole step-dad... and _me_. Can you please, _please_ pick me up Annabeth?" It seemed like an outrageous request because it was.

He barely knew her, yet he found himself using his one phone call on her without even blinking.

_'Hell no!'_ Annabeth wanted to say.

But then he murmured "Wise girl…" and it was like he was standing right next to her, like his lips were on her ear.

She could almost picture him hunkered down in the corner of the cell, anxiously fiddling with his lip ring with a black eye and a Ramones t-shirt.

_'Jackass.' _

"I'll be there in ten."

* * *

><p>She had to sneak out the back door, and take her father's pick up truck, so maybe her "noble rescue" wasn't so noble.<p>

And also she was wearing faded blue-striped pajama shorts and an oversized "The Muppets" t-shirt.

Regardless, Percy still greeted her with a sarcastic "my hero" and a smile that made her want to punch him in the face.

"Just get in the car." She sighed.

He wasted no time to get comfortable, the first thing he did being kicking his feet up on her dashboard, and the second being looking her up and down slowly through long, dark eyelashes and muttering with amusement "Nice shorts. You look good."

"Shut up. You're just saying that because they're currently riding up my butt." She replied, focusing on the road ahead so she wouldn't have to met his eyes that always seemed to be looking at her. They felt scrutinizing, like they were hugging the length of her body.

Annabeth shuddered.

Percy didn't look away from her, but blood rushed to his face and Annabeth smirked.

It was better when she was the one making him uncomfortable.

"N-No, i just meant because they're blue. Blue is a nice color." He mumbled in self-defense.

There was an awkward silence, but that was expected.

This was only the third time they'd ever spoken, and she was picking him up from jail.

Jail.

_'The third time we've spoken and i've already brought up the word "butt".'_ Annabeth thought with despair. _'Great job, Annabeth.' _

"So…" She started, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel and pretending the action was effortless and nonchalant. "Where to?"

She could barely believe her currently situation. Percy Jackson was sitting in her car, with his feet up, and a plastic bag of belongings in his lap and everything.

If her dad knew she'd be done for.

Percy shrugged meekly. "I don't know, just drop me off wherever i guess. If my mom saw me come home all black and blue again, she'd kill me."

_'Black and blue and _red_.'_ She wanted to correct him. _'And a lot of red.' _

His fingertips were dripping with the stuff like he'd dipped them in watercolor paint, it was his own too, and someone had obviously taken a knife to his chest, because his shirt look like it'd been mauled by a mountain lion.

_'Switch blade.'_ Annabeth guessed. She didn't know much about street fighting, but she'd seen the movie _The Outsiders_ at her step-mom's house once.

"Well," Annabeth was lost in her observation and now she'd shamelessly jerked to a harsh stop at a red light, and Percy hissed and clutched his abdomen. "I'm not letting you roam the streets like that."

Percy looked to her in bewilderment.

"But you don't mean-"

"But i do!" Annabeth grinned madly. "I'm going to clean your wounds."

Percy groaned, but Annabeth could see the smile through that.

"How romantic." He drawled, his head thudding against the fogged-up window and smothering his already shaggy and falling-apart faux hawk.

"Extremely."

* * *

><p>"Take off your shirt." She whispered, trying to sound not the least bit sexual, but let's be honest, there is no way you could tone that one down.<p>

Percy (who was sitting on the edge of her mattress and making it look like a doll bed with his gangly legs and general tallness) raised an eyebrow at her in the darkness and she gulped.

"As you wish." He said smugly.

She realized she was staring and he was waiting for her to turn around, so she did, her heart beating faster and faster like a car accelerating on the freeway.

Right now she was at about 100 miles per hour and he wasn't helping her slow down.

She felt a heavy, hot blooded hand tap her arm and she turned.

And _holy shit_.

Was it wrong that she found him even more attractive with a cut and swollen lip, sweaty hair, and a bruised temple?

Somehow he was completely oblivious of his appearance, unlike Luke or that Jason Grace who knew they were attractive in the arrogant kind of way.

He just sat there, bare-chested and on _her_ bed.

Did she mention that _Percy Jackson_ was _on her bed_?

"So, you gonna kiss my boo-boos or what?" He questioned.

Annabeth snapped out of her reverie, dropping her first aid kit, and stumbling when she bent to pick it up again.

"Y-Yeah, lets just clean those cuts first. I'll numb them with a painkiller." She rattled a bottle of advil, placing two in her palm and moving to hand them to him, but when she faced him, his mouth was wide open.

_'Does he really expect me to…'_

Annabeth sighed in defeat and placed the two pills on his tongue. Her hands were shaking.

And they still were when she brought a damp cotton pad doused with peroxide to his bare chest.

He winced, but didn't move, letting her dab at him all she wanted.

Annabeth found herself even rubbing where there weren't any cuts, like over his collar bone and down the middle of his chest.

It was like painting art, and he was just so…. beautiful, like a greek sculpture.

By now he probably knew what she was doing, but he was silent, he didn't utter a word, afraid that she'd stop.

Percy secretly liked being taken care of. He wasn't used to it though, it didn't happen often.

"There." She said, eventually, when he was all bandaged and she was pleased with her handiwork. "All better, right?"

"Just peachy." He mused, rocking back on her bed.

_'You can put your shirt back on now.'_ She should've said, but the moonlight hit his body like a chisel, making some of his lines glow godly and softly, and others hard, like the sharp angle of his jaw.

"Missed a spot." Annabeth said sleepily.

She reached out to wipe away at the blood blooming at the corner of his mouth, but without even thinking, she found her lips moving there instead.

It was gentle and friendly, just the barest press of lips on skin, and it tasted like sweet salt and iron tang.

She sucked a little on his bottom lip, only slightly, but it was enough to make him wince.

Not with pain, but with how unbelievably good it felt.

She pulled away, but not all the way from his face, so that she was still breathing in his warm, short breaths.

Coming to a full realization of what she just did, her breaths were all of a sudden shuddery and scared.

"Annabeth," Percy said cautiously, too close to look at her face. "What are you doing?"

Annabeth jerked away, scooting to the other side of the bed.

"I don't know," Her voice was far away "I'm sorry. I didnt mean to, well- i wanted- but i understand if-"

Percy pulled Annabeth to him roughly and her heart was beating rapidly against his chest.

When his lips crushed into hers, it wasn't delicate and fragile, it was a tidal wave and she wanted to drown.

She was almost in his lap and he was grasping her hair in fistfuls, desperately tugging her closer, wanting her closer.

It was like he was trying to consume her, inhale her, and she would've let him.

She didn't think anyone could want her this much.

He guided her down onto her bed a little and she traced the lines of his muscles with her fingertips.

Then he let her go, and she was a panting mess.

_'This can't go too far.'_ She warned herself.

He kissed her forehead once more, only softer.

"Annabeth," He breathed out huskily, "Please just stop talking."

She nodded in agreement, and when he flattened his palms on her lower stomach in wonderment, she knew it had already gone too far.

Far enough to get hurt.

But with the feel of his leg in between hers and his hands rucking up the hem of her shirt, she didn't seem to care.

And his lips were _everywhere_, gentle and a little sloppy on her neck, and careful on her earlobe and jaw bone.

And where her body was shivering, it was now enveloped in heat, in a night sweat, in a steady beat of drums on their way to war.

* * *

><p>"Leave."<p>

The word came out sudden and strangled like a cough, racking her rib cage.

Annabeth Chase found herself overcome with strange a bout of fear, almost like vertigo.

Percy didn't look angry or like he was going to put up a fight.

And maybe it was just the dark tricking her vision, but Annabeth could've sworn he looked wounded, she could've sworn he looked as if he'd thought that they had actually meant something.

She sat up abruptly, hands trembling as they wiped at her lips that were warm with mixed saliva and Percy.

"Annabeth," His voice was softer than the heated air around them and it filled her chest with guilt, "I don't understand, I-"

"I like Luke." Her lips were still parted when she finished the sentence. She hadn't let go of the breath.

Why did she say that? Why did she feel the need to justify herself?

Of course she liked Luke, he was her childhood crush, he got straight A's and he looked like sunshine.

Percy Jackson crash-landed into her life like a plane on fire, he got straight F's and some D's on a good day, and he looked like nighttime and acted like it too.

Of course she liked Luke, of course…

The thought crumbled and fell like moon sand between open fingertips the more she repeated it in her head.

It was slipping and slipping, and especially when she looked at Percy Jackson's stupid, hopeful, puppy dog face, and god don't even get her started on that oh-so-prententious lip ring that made her eyes melt into a dusky molten-silver daze every time he pushed it around with his tongue.

"Whoa, whoa!" Percy snapped out of his hurt as she started to stand, straightening her shorts and avoiding his eyes like the plague.

"Annabeth, what's this about? You know that i want you." There he went, throwing his heart around like a business card.

Annabeth could almost see it when she closed her eyelids.

'Percy Jackson: Bad Boy Extraordinaire. Contact work phone for a one night stand and a heart decorated with hairline fractures and bruises in the shape of fingertips.'

If it wasn't so true she might have even laughed aloud at the thought.

"No, Percy…" She said calmly, after giving up on pretending to rummage through her first aid kit to kill the time and hopefully his relentless stare too. "No, Percy, i don't know if you want me and i can't trust you."

He stood up so fast she had to bite her tongue to stop herself from flinching.

But the waver in his eyes and the tiny frown in his brow told her he had noticed.

"What?!" Fury seeped into his voice slowly, like a storm creeping over mountains, like poison into a bloodstream. "You can't trust me? Because i'm Percy Jackson? Because 'dear god! the boy with the bad reputation and less-than-satisfactory GPA can't possibly have feelings!' Christ, Annabeth, i thought you saw me!"

Annabeth wanted to tell him to lower his voice, she thought she could feel the walls quaking around her.

But his words were stripped so raw, bitten to the core, and she couldn't bear to tell him to stop.

She pitied him and he saw that.

And he hated it.

"I..I thought you_ saw_ me…" His voice was the smallest of whispers, muddled with so much confusion and betrayal he hardly recognized it himself.

_'I see you. I do.'_ She wanted to say, but then he'd go back to wanting her all over again and she couldn't have that.

"I _don't_ know that you want me." She repeated instead, feeling so very small in her skin.

With a little more courage than it should've taken she brought herself to turn and look at him. "You flirt with everyone, Percy. I don't want to be the girl who's stupid enough to think that she's special."

Annabeth was always so guarded, her eyes were always steel and her face was a blank page.

But right then her face was an open book with all her hopes and thoughts filling the pages like scripture.

For a moment, she even thought he was going to reassure her, coax her back into his inked-up arms and calloused hands.

But as Annabeth's walls were being pulled down, something clicked in his mind, and his were back up again and higher than ever.

"So?" That was all he said. There was an iron edge to the word and he smiled weakly.

Annabeth's mouth closed slowly. She hadn't realized it was open.

His voice was distant, but still full of bits of snark and spite.

_'Don't be an idiot, Annabeth. He's Percy Jackson. And he can't afford to be anything less.' _

There was a choked sound from her throat, and then nothing at all.

A pause.

"Yeah, i, uh.. i can see that." She offered up her best fake-smile, but it was aimed at the floor.

And if anyone asked, she'd never admit she was even a smudge hurt by him.

"Well, i don't want to waste your time, so you need to go." He didn't look pleased at her reaction. What else had he expected?

He practically told her she was just another girl, just another fuzzy Friday night in his memory.

He sat back down on her bed, and Annabeth rolled her eyes.

"Oh, but you don't want me to go." He started with that dazzling-in-the-dark, vampire-smile. "Not even a little bit. And if you do, just wait. 'Cause you are gonna beg for me to come back-"

"Leave and maybe i'll _let_ you come back, asshole! And hell, I hope one day you're as miserable as you're acting." Annabeth snapped.

Where her nerves used to be on a good kind of fire, they now were sizzling and overheated, like a electric-charged wire ready to snap.

Percy got up, and Annabeth noticed how he towered over her, and despite the grade point average, made her feel like the dumbest girl in the world.

"Well, _Annie McSmith_, i hope one day you're as happy as you're pretending to be."

With that he tugged open the door handle and rushed out of there as quick as he could (he felt so goddamn light-headed he almost didn't make it down the stairs).

But he didn't turn back to see the look on her face, to wink with superiority, or give her the classic two finger mock-salute.

Usually he did, he loved to see the crushed look on people's faces, like weeds under his foot.

This was different.

_She_ was different.

She wasn't a weed, she was a flower and he'd still brought his boot down down down...

* * *

><p><strong>AN: i haven't proof read this, or actually read over it at all.**

**i promise on percy jackson's whole body i'll fix it later.**

**maybe next chapter i'll add more characters and actually have them go to school, so this isn't one giant after-school special.**

**i'm thinking some caleo could be nice. **

**very tired.**

**very.**

**i love ur face.**

**-nightswitch**

**7:29 AM, morning after:**

**i fixed some typos (but probably not all of them) and made some changes.**

**Thank you for reviewing! I read every single review and, positive or negative, they really just make my day.**

**I'll try to update soon.**

**-nightswitch**

**P.S. i made a nico di angelo playlist! listen to it at: 8tracks dot com / nightswitch / di-angelo-side-a**


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